Dust and Ashes with Promised Treasures
Dust and Ashes with Promised Treasures
Series: Promised Treasures - Lent
Scripture Passage: 2 Corinthians 5:16-6:2, Job 30:11-19, Matthew 11:20-30, Psalm 51:1-12
Scripture: Matthew 11:20-30
Today, we begin our forty-day journey of confession, contrition, and repentance. Ashes are imposed and impressed on us with a cross on our foreheads. It is the first external reminder that Lent has come, and I must die. Ashes for baptized Christians are a sign of confession, repentance, suffering, and grief. When God first confronted Adam in the Garden of Eden after the fall into sin, God immediately reminded Adam that just as he came from the dust of the ground, so his body would become dust again in death. Although Adam and Eve were once created perfectly, they would now die because they transgressed God’s command. As their children, we also speak these same words when we impose ashes: “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return!” Death comes to all people because all have been born with it from our first father and mother, Adam and Eve. As King David truly confesses, “I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me” (Psalm 51:5)…
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